


Tainted

by MelfinaLupin



Category: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Blood, Gen, Gore, Horror, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:19:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelfinaLupin/pseuds/MelfinaLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vampires, zombies, and a girl with a gun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Katie-Ann

The castle is still fresh in Katie-Ann’s mind when her eyes fluttered up that morning. It’s a murky, bizarre dream but it’s so familiar she’s come to expect it almost every night now. She lays there in the middle of her wrought-iron bed, curled up in a mound of stolen blankets, and stares up into the cracked, dusty ceiling, and feels homesick for a place that she’s never been before. A castle would be a hell of a lot nicer to live in then this diseased shit-hole. The day feels new and auspicious as she basks in the hazy peace like a cat. Her fingers snake upwards to stroke the tiny skull pendant she wears like a talisman hoping it would ward off reality just a bit longer, but it doesn't work. She’s shaky with hunger and her bladder is screaming for relief. It’s time to get up.

If she moves too fast the world spins. She sits at the edge of her bed a moment, fingers digging so hard into the mattress that her nails throb and ache. Waiting for the vertigo to subside is humiliating. She has no time for this. When she starts to feel better she moves with a sluggish but quiet gait. The floors of the century old house groan as she winds her way throughout it. The boarded up windows make the interior as dark as sin before she flips the flickering lights on. It’s one of her few luxuries. She sidesteps piles of vintage knickknacks and loaded bookshelves because she lives with a pack rat who’s obsessed with anything old and musical, though she really doesn't mind his collection of records. She’s sure her unsociable roommate is already passed out in his room, but she can never sure with that guy.  Maybe he’s still awake because, like her, the burning in his stomach is too painful to ignore.

Tepid water trickles from the silver faucet in the bathroom. There’s a slight brown hue to it but she’s dealt with worse. She brushes her teeth with baking soda, cleans her face to shake the last of the cobwebs from her head, and wrestles her long hair into a ponytail. Avoiding the mirror is essential. She’s never considered herself to be an exceptionally pretty girl, and years of rugged living have placed appearances on the back burner. She well aware that her eyes are sunken, her complexion is sickly and windswept, and her eyebrows are thick because Adam took her treasured tweezers for handyman work and never gave them back.

A solitary bottle decorates the porcelain sink. She gives it a tentative shake, making the yellow pills rattle about. Her stomach drops a little when she pops the lid off and only counts five. Despite her best wishes they haven’t multiplied during the night. She still takes two to play it safe. Back in her room she changes into a worn down pair of jeans that have to be belted to stay in place and a faded Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that’s frayed about the elbows and cuffs. Boots and a coat are essential because the chilly, soggy winds of autumn are creeping into Detroit. Getting sick is out of the question. Her pistol is her lifeline and she tucks into the holster strapped to her thigh. Its weight alone makes her feel safer. She grabs a set of walkie-talkies from off their chargers and shoves them into her coat’s deeper pockets. They’re old and the plastic shows signs of wear and tear, but they still work. Her AK-47 is under her bed. She pulls it out and slips the sling over her head so that she can carry the weapon on her back.

It’s time to face the beast now. She’s louder than necessary when she stomps up the stairs to the third floor in case Adam is up. It’s darker up here than below. Every window has been nailed shut by layers of salvaged wood. It throws the aesthetics off a bit, but even in a world full of zombies a vampire’s second biggest concern will still be sunlight. She raps on his door. There’s no answer, but she enters anyway.  Just like the rest of his home his room is dark and teeming with eclectic items, but she can still make out the lanky figure draped across the bed of black bedding as though he fell onto the mattress face first and didn’t brother to make himself more comfortable. His lack of clothes makes his pale skin all the more obvious in the dark. He’s practically glowing. He hates clothes and she’s pretty sure she’s the only reason he wears pants when he’s up and about at night.

“Hey.”

There’s a flat grumble from beneath his pillow. He’s so eloquent when he’s sleepy. Because she’s feeling facetious she asks if he’s awake.

“No.”

Adam is missing one of her stellar glares, but she can tell he feels it. He pulls the blanket up and over his head, determined to shut her out. Despite the promotion of my guardian the two thousand-year-old vampire is better suited playing the role of the manic depressed older brother. She presses on, unsympathetic toward his plight. “I’m going out for a bit. Make sure your up in an hour to let me back in, kay?”

He sees her off with a grunt and sharp wave.

If she seems blasé about the whole living with a vampire it’s because she is. Honestly this arrangement is pretty normal compared to what’s been happening outside this mansion turned bunker on Alfred Street. The first couple of weeks here had been awkward. She had shown up on his doorstep with her stolen AK-47 and with an olive green military coat drowning her frame. He growled like a dog and bared his pointed canines, ready to pounce after weeks of starvation. The rough hewed skull she shoved into his face was enough to allow her inside, but it was obvious Adam wasn’t happy with Eve offering her sanctuary in his home without his permission. He was irritable and she made sure to be as quiet as a mouse under the roof of her new home. She wasn’t afraid of him, just a little unsure. Eve is beautiful in a wild, ethereal way, and Adam has the chiseled looks of a model. Apparently only the most beautiful of people are turned into vampires. The rest of the ugly, unwashed masses are left to die or become zombies. Eventually she swallowed her shyness and asked him to fix the bathroom by her room because she was tired of pissing in the garden.

She stops on the first floor before leaving the fortified mansion. Adam only uses the space for storage and the main hallway is basically one long mudroom, but the kitchen in the back on the house is her domain. She doubts Adam had ever stepped inside it before he fixed the appliances while muttering his complaints under his breath the entire time. He’s a good but grumpy handyman if he can set his guitar down long enough to be useful. She warms up half a can of pork and beans on the stove and burns her tongue wolfing her breakfast down.

Breathing through her mouth to cool the burn, she takes stock of the pantry. If she’s stingy the canned goods she has can last about another week and a half. She could seriously kill for some toast or scrambled eggs though. Even the thought of bacon makes her mouth salivate. But she haven’t seen those kinds of commodities in months, just things loaded with preservatives and the little amount of fruit she’s managed to scavenge and can during the summer months.

It takes a few moments to unlock all the locks on the back door. Even though Detroit’s become a wasteland the extra protection is comforting. The population was dwindling before the outbreak and now it’s even scarcer. The citizens have either fled to Canada or died, but she knows a few huddled groups of humanity remain behind closed doors.

The morning sunlight is blinding as she steps outside, but the warmth feels nice. It’s overgrown out here but her little garden continues to putter along. Dewy clover and dandelion heads are quick sources of energy that she nibbles on as she heads south, cutting through unkempt lots towards the inner city. 

Detroit is an anomaly. It’s a slowly rotting ghost town, and she still has not gotten used to the lack of synthetic noise. During her twenty minute walk the only sounds she can hear are the natural kind; the under sole of her boots brushing against the dry grass; twittering, energetic birdsongs; the cool gusts of wind through branches of trees. There are no cars driving on the crumbling roads, no blaring alarms, no voices of people in the middle of the urban metropolis. It’s surreal because she’s familiar with the nightmare occurring outside the city limits. There are hoards of infected people and crazed, gun toting cannibals are roaming the streets of other cities and towns, chasing down and devouring any living thing that had the unfortunate luck of being outside.

News of a groundbreaking new drug hit social media like a storm in 2019. There would never again be a shortage of blood thanks to  _Ewig Blut_. It was true that blood was impossible to recreate but a German pharmaceutical company pushed for a solution. It took more than twenty years of research, but in one day they changed the world forever. She doesn’t blame the scientists for what happened next. It was an accident.

In 2021 the company made of batch of synthetic blood tainted with the worst virus known to mankind. It preyed upon the weak and unvaccinated, and the druggies who regularly doped up in the seemingly endless amount of blood. In her family’s farm, she’d watched the news reports in horror. The infected developed a weird obsession for chewing vegetable skins like pumpkin and potatoes before moving onto animal meat. It was only a matter of time before human flesh was their next fixation. The bloodier the better. Bone chilling accounts of homeless junkies ambushing tourists and babies gnawing off their own fingers in the middle of the night were everywhere, and people got real scared real quick. The media called coined the virus the Red Death.

In America it started on the coasts, giving the rural towns in Middle America a false sense of security, but it eventually swept inland.  The epidemic was unstoppable. Governments fell. People panicked. Civilization stopped being civil. Now the world is full of bloody brain-hungry zombies, a handful of humans who are immune to the virus, and the vampires who came out of hiding as soon as the manmade blood hit the market.

Adam said the world was full of zombies and now it really is.

She tries to push those disturbing thoughts out of her mind. She doesn’t want to reminisce about the past. It wasn’t a happy one. She was twenty when she abandoned her small family. Her dad had stumbled home one evening beaten and bleeding from a fresh bite wound. A zombie had grabbed him out in the field and sunk its teeth into his arm, nearly ripping it from him. Her mom cried and tried to stop the bleeding but the damage was done. Katie-Ann was the only one how knew was needed to be done next. She pulled a pistol on her dad, ready to kill him then and there if it meant saving the rest of her family, and was slapped so hard that she flew into the wall. Her mother tended to her dad, fully convinced she could stop the spread of the virus. Katie-Ann knew heard them whispering angrily about how crazy their daughter had become. She decided to leave in the middle of the night. It was better to go than to wake up in a house full of infection. She thinks she’s about twenty-five now and she doesn’t regret her decision. She survived and would survive some more to experience Michigan’s infamous winters.

The skyscrapers of Detroit are beaten down over time by hot summers, cold winters, and constant presence of moisture in the air. The windowpanes have been blown out, and the remnants of the glass litter the ground below. The exteriors are dirty and the metal is starting to warp from lack of maintenance. Detroit is rotting, but nature is reclaiming what it can.

Grand Circus Park remains pretty patch a green though now it has transformed into a wild jungle with its weeds and grass spilling out onto the cracked pavement. She’s vigilant as she follows the park’s fragmented footpath past the ruins of a fountain. It’s not long before she begins to hear footsteps echoing behind her. They’re faint so that means whoever is trailing her isn’t too close, but she still reaches for her pistol gun. It been a while since she’s encountered a zombie in the city but she knew that respite wouldn’t last forever. She never stops moving, slowly and deliberately, and keeps her right ear just over her shoulder so she can gauge her stalker’s distance. Worry for her safety has long since been exchanged for a cold, detached hardness.

She slows down, allows her stalker to gain on her a little, before she pulls her gun free. She spins around, undoing the safety, and aims with deadly certainty. She glares across the way at her assault, her bitch face firmly in place, and shouts, “Move and I’ll shoot.”

To Be Continued


	2. Dylan

Resolve blanks her mind as the trigger presses firmly against her fingertip. Aim and fire has now become an automatic response. If luck is on her side it’s nobody but Old Sisty, the rabid blood doper who prowls the decaying ruins of Rosedale Park. Blood dopers are the dregs of whatever society still remains, and Sisty has gotten downright sadistic with age. Worst case scenario it’s a half rotten zombie with its hands held out like claws ready to grab her and a gapping mouth with jagged teeth and a wiggling purple tongue eager for a meal. She hasn’t seen one of those shuffling about in Detroit for a while, but that doesn’t mean the city will be safe from them forever. Neither is behind her. It’s a man with bright eyes and honey-colored skin who jumps back at the sight of her handgun, hands raised with his palms towards her. His black beard grows rampantly and dirt accentuates the lines on his forehead. A sheepish grin splits his peeling mouth.

 “Dylan, you’re such an ass!” She pelts him with rocks instead of bullets, but his thick coat makes them bounce off with little damage down. He laughs off her attack. It’s the best kind of sound to hear in this desolate area but it doesn’t ease Katie-Ann’s sour mood. “I nearly shot you!”

“I called out to you,” he points out. “It ain’t my fault you didn’t hear me, girl.”

“I heard your footsteps just fine,” she snapped. “Don’t do that again.”

Dylan smile slowly disappears. She’s winded and struggling to down play it as she puts away her weapon. She runs her hands over her coat to soothe out the winkles and adjusted the frayed cuffs while Dylan watches, growing more concerned as she refuses to look at him.

“Hey, you ok?”

She swallows deeply. Sweat cools her upper lip and beads at her temples. “Yeah,” she crooks.   _Oh, please, don’t let me faint here._  “Just hungry. It’ll pass.” She looks sharply over her shoulder as if something caught her attention and keeps looking away for as long as she needs to in order to get herself under control.

Dylan isn’t stupid. He’s known her long enough to see the signals of vitamin B deficiency. He’s at her side in an instant with a hand clutching her elbow gently, offering her some support. She doesn’t take it. “Hey,” he says again. This time it’s a quiet whisper between the two of them. His other hand rummages through the wide pocket of his hoodie. “I’ve got a present for you.” His smile is back as he reveals a Twinkie. The plastic wrapping is filled with squished cake and mushy filling, but it’s a Twinkie nonetheless, and Katie-Ann can’t remember the last time she had one.

Her stomach gurgles painfully. “You found it. It’s yours.”

“We can share.” Katie-Ann is pretty sure he has the kindest face in all of Detroit. Years of hard living have dug deep grooves into his skin, but baby fat still fills in his cheeks. “How about that?”

Katie-Ann looks at the mush. “Is it still good to eat?” Not that she cares. Food poisoning via Twinkie seems bearable.

“Pretty sure these guys don’t expire.”

They sit on the ruins of the fountain in the morning sunshine. Dylan’s smile is back as he carefully pulls apart the package, not wishing to squander a single crumb. Katie-Ann feels as giddy as a little girl as she scoops up a glob to shove into her mouth. It’s sweet and moist, and probably the best thing she’ll ever taste in a while. She closes her eyes, savoring the sweetness for as long as possible before taking another helping. The sugar helps clear her head and bolsters her flagging energy.

“Let’s see that map,” Katie-Ann finally says. As much as she would like to just sit and simply enjoy the treat they are pressed for time. It’s never a good idea to stay outside for too long.

Dylan retrieves the map from his back pocket. The creases are soft and well-worn as he unfolds the delicate paper. The map of the city covers their laps and is littered with hand drawn markings. Circles for the areas that are safe to explore. X’s are off limits if you value your life. Stars are for established camps.

They aren’t alone in the city. All about are huddles groups of survivors, holding on to one another for dear life and maybe a scrape of food to eat. While most are simply frightened bands that pose no real threat to intentionally trespass into someone’s camp is often seen as an act of offense. Detroit sees its share of visitors too. They are weary and haunted. They aren’t looking for trouble. Only a safe route into Canada. If they are friendly, Dylan and Katie-Ann give them whatever food or bullets they can spare in exchange for information on the world outside Michigan. A skinny man from Georgia told them that the kudzu plant suffocates the South, leaving other plants and animals little room to survive. A haggard family of three said they had to completely bypass the plains of Kansas because the fields had turned into an inferno thanks to an extensive drought and a lick of a bolt of lightning. With no one to put out the flames, Katie-Ann recons the fire will most likely spread to consume the neighboring.

They sit and pour over the map. Katie-Ann hates that Old Sisty’s territory seems to expand every day and would like nothing more than to put a bullet in her head. “She’s going to push us further and further south,” she murmurs. Moving south means moving farther away from the group of clinics and hospitals just north of Adam’s house, and she would rather not have them under Sisty’s control. “Eventually we’ll have to borrow Adam’s car if we want to go scavenging for supplies.”

Dylan scoffs. He’s never meet Adam and doesn’t seem eager to. He’s even reluctant to take the walkie-talkie from her because it’s fully charged thanks to Adam’s ingenious generator.

“He’s letting me tough his things now though,” she tells him with a smirk. “It’s like he sees me as a puppy who’s being awarded for its good behavior by being able to sleep on the couch now, so maybe one day I can take the car for a spin.”

“If he pisses you off make sure you shit on the floor.”

Katie-Ann laughs. “Can do.”

Dylan takes one last scoop of the Twinkie. “How long do you think you’ve been here?”

“Five months?” With no calendar and clocks it’s hard to keep track of time. She just keeps on eye on the weather and makes sure to make the necessary precautions for winter. She’ll have to stockpile more food, and get her hands on some more bullets, or maybe a bow and arrow, if she wants fresh meat and blood for Adam during those long, dark months ahead.

“How long do you think it takes a vamp to make it to Los Angeles and back?”

His question pulls her away from her worries about the future. “On foot? I don’t know since she can only move at night. Eve went there to get his sister, and I don’t think Ava wants to be found.” Katie-Ann keeps her voice nonchalant even as fear churns her stomach. It feels as though she is just bidding her time until she sees Eve again. Living with only Adam as a companion is grating. He’s not the most social type, and it makes her wonder how Eve could put up with his temperamental woes. “It might be awhile.”

“You know you can only come live with me.”

“Thanks, Dylan, but Adam ain’t that bad,” she lies. She types a section of the map to draw his attention back to their task on hand. It’s a safe zone two miles away. “We haven’t looked here in a while. I just need to check the cage before we go, ok?”

Katie-Ann sets the trap out daily. It’s baited with scrapes of food to lure animals inside so that Adam can have a backup source of blood if he can’t catch anything during his nightly hunts. It’s not much and sometimes the cage will sit empty for days, but it’s the least she can do for him for allowing her to stay in his home. She had left it in the safety of a crumbling car garage in the hopes of tempting a hungry possum or even a rat. She hears the pitiful squeaks of a trapped animal before she sees it. She quickens her pace so view her prey, and spies the young raccoon pacing about its prison.

“I guess Adam will have to wait,” she murmurs as she opens the door and allows the frightened mammal to escape. Hopefully its mother is nearby and it can reunite with her. She plans to restock the cage with fresh bait and reset the trap later in the evening. Right now she doesn’t have the time.

Their other foraging venture proves to be more successful, but the work is grueling and time consuming. Old brick warehouses were the first buildings used as bunkers in the city because they seemed sturdy enough, but most stand empty now. With the windows busted out and no real way to barricade the massive doors against potential treats, residents easily succumbed to the weather and to the bites of hungry, rabies-infected animals.

They sift through the dirt and trash, hoping to uncover at least one or two overlooked cans of food. The first two floors are barren. Not many people are willing to go any higher for fear of running into a gang of dopers. Katie-Ann and Dylan press on towards the third floor. In a back room, no bigger than a closet, they find food sealed in cans and in thick plastic wrappers. The heavy, square feels as solid as a brick beneath its protective wrapping, but Katie-Ann’s familiar with this type of food. The bars were made en masse for survivors and distributed by planes in crates. It was the government’s last ditch effort to help the immune and unaffected subsist after the stocks of complimentary bullets and guns were exhausted.

“I’d never thought I’d be so happy to see a Mayday bar again,” Dylan jokes, but his sarcasm is palpable. It’s not a luxury food. It tastes like a chalky short bread cookie, but it’s loaded with calories and nutrients and one pack can last for several days. They know they have no room to complain and quietly stow the bars away.

“How are you on medicine and stuff?” She needs a distraction from the bile rising in her stomach. She had survived on nothing but these rations for months once a couple of years back when a lonesome plane had dropped a crate full of the stuff a few miles from where she camped. There was nothing but forest for miles in all direction, and the roar of the engine cut through the trees like a knife. To this day she wonders if the pilots were sick of fighting a losing battle and decided to crash into the meadow on purpose.

Dylan shrugs as he adjusted the flap on his rucksack. “I’m running a little low,” he admits. “That fever I had really cleaned out my storage of ibuprofen.”

“Figures. Adam and I are raiding the hospitals tonight if you want to come with us.”

He scratches his bearded chin and takes his time answering. “I don’t know, Kate.”

“Come on. You need to come and we could use the extra hands.”

“Fine.”

Katie-Ann tells him to come by her house a little after dark before they say their goodbyes and separate for the day. Food and sleep will be the next step today if they’re going to stay up tonight with a vampire. Night scavenging is always more dangerous. That’s when the creeps come out of hiding, and the group of hospitals is a popular area is search for supplies. Katie-Ann once saw a woman shot over a bottle of penicillin. She needs to be on her guard tonight especially if Old Sisty is lurking about with her hunting rifle.

She has stayed out longer than planned. She expects that Adam will be pissed about the inconvenience and walks a little faster towards Alfred Street. The cans of food bang noisily in her knapsack, silencing the padded footfalls behind her and the gravelly panting. The mansion looms overhead when a hallow howl erupts behind her. It’s a disturbing surprise and Katie-Ann freezes. Very slowly she risks a peak over her shoulder. A massive timber wolf is poised several yards away. It’s belly almost to the ground as its scruff prickle between the thick shoulders. The ragged beast is hungry and ferocious, and his white canines flash in the sunlight before he bounds towards her.


	3. The Wolf

She runs like a bat out of hell. She’s convinced that she can outrun it - that she can make it back to the house before she’s the wolf’s next meal - so she doesn't have to waste the ammo taking the ugly son of a bitch down. A girl without bullets doesn't last for long in this new world. The wolf is desperately hungry, that much is true, but it’s also old and limping as it chases her. She can do it. She has to.

The electric rush of adrenaline gives Katie-Ann the energy she needs to move quickly but she pays for it. Her feet catch and she trips, crashing down onto the buckled pavement below with a pained groan scouring in insides of her throat. Her hands and knees skid over the ground. Skin and clothes tear too easily. The wind is knocked from her lungs, but there is no time to recover. The wolf is so close. The patter of massive paws approaches without fear and hot, humid breath rushes past her ears as a muzzle clamps down on the hood of her coat. The wolf’s growl vibrates Katie-Ann eardrums before she is viciously shaken, feeling as limp as a ragdoll as her coat rips between sharp canines. Her head whips from side to side. She wants to panic the moment disorientation set in, but she automatically kicks the beast away as hard as she can. She doesn’t stop until the wolf releases her. She scrambles to her feet, grabs her AK-47, and smashes the butt of gun between its two hazel eyes. Blood oozes from the fresh cuts on his muzzle when the wolf finally staggers after the forth blow. Katie-Ann turns and flees.

She and Adam have worked out a system of letting their fellow housemate inside. All thing considered, allowing a person to let themselves into the house is too risky. One buzz of the doorbell tells Adam to open the door. A repeated mashing of the button tells Adam to get off his lazy ass and open the fucking door _now_.  Door flies open and an unsmiling Adam hauls Katie-Ann over the threshold, hissing at the pervasive sunlight that catches his bare hands, and slams the door in the wolf’s face. A whimpering howl fills the cluttered hallway as Katie-Ann struggles to catch her breath on the dusty floor.

“The fuck is that, Katie-Ann?”

“It’s a fucking wolf, Adam,” she shoots back like he’s a moron. Adam huffs, insulted, but she doesn’t care. She keeps her eyes shut as she rests against the wall, and weakness and fatigue replace the adrenaline. Her legs feel like jelly, her chest burns with each panting sob, and the blood from her open cuts cools on her palm. Adam begins to breathe heavily too as he picks up the scent of his favorite meal before he’s wrenching the door open with a growl. There’s a high-pitched whine followed by the hollow snap of bone. Katie-Ann stomach churns. She wishes she had the energy to crawl into her room, but she is completely zapped. She tries to tune out the wet suckling as Adam satisfies his hunger, and hopes the wolf isn’t sick with rabies.

She’s focused so hard on ignoring Adam she doesn’t realize it has gone quiet. When he grabs her she jerks away violently. “No,” she whimpers, afraid that the fresh blood has left him desperate for more. “You can’t!” She struggles against him, striking his steely frame with her fists and feet, but he doesn’t budge. The large hands on her arms pin them to her arms so she can’t reach for either gun.

“Stop it,” he huffs his order as he pulls her into his arms. He stands up, and effortlessly carries her up the stairs to her room leaving her rucksack in the hallway. She’s collapses against him, too weak to maintain her pride. He grunts in irritation, but allows it. She wasn’t going to be his next meal. She’s so deliriously relieved and tired that she doesn’t mind when he dumps her unceremoniously onto her bed. In fact she’s glad she’s finally lying down again.

“You’re too pale,” he states as he relieves her of her guns and the remains of her shredded coat.

Her pillows feel so good under her head. Katie-Ann snuggles into them, wanting to sleep for the next five days. Her body feels so heavy as though it’s made of lead. “I thought I was going to die.” The confession is halfway between a mumble and a whisper, but Adam hears it nonetheless.

“You don’t have to worry about the wolf.”

“I wasn’t talking about the wolf.”

Adam scoffs. “Your blood’s disgusting.” He doesn’t even try to conceal his distain like the pretentious connoisseur he is.

“Thanks.” She’s too immune to the truth to be offended. Not all blood is the same, and anemic blood doesn’t hold a light to the real good stuff as she’s come to find out. It would be like drinking salt water when your thirst begged to be quenched on a hot day.

He skulks away without saying anything else, and Katie-Ann burrows herself under her blankets. She really hopes the raid tonight will provide her with some more badly needed vitamins. Malnourishment is exacerbating her anemia, and trying to survive with the constant fatigue is as frustrating as it is dangerous.

She’s asleep before he walks out the door. The impromptu meal doesn’t bring that euphoric high Adam’s used too but it’s cleared away the worst of the lethargy and mends the open sores on his hands. Already fresh skin is growing over the exposed tissue and bones and the raw red blisters are fading. By the time he is standing in the middle of the kitchen his skin has returned to unblemished porcelain.

He looks around the room warily. He’s lived in the house for decades. He knows each and every nail in the walls, every mouse hole, every crack in the foundation, but even he has to rack his brain about the mechanisms of the bloody oven. The refrigerator is easy. Open the door. Get what you need. Shut the door. Done. He stands in front of the oven, a tiny steel box that had been used for storage for decades, half open can of beans in one hand, and pot in the other, and suspiciously examines each and every knob on the control panel. Four knobs for four burners. Easy. He turns one over, sits the pot on the blackened grill, and dumps the rest of Katie-Ann’s breakfast into the pot.  She’s always been a wiry, athletic chav, but when he grabbed her arms in the corridor he could feel for himself how skinny she had gotten the past couple of months.

“Stupid girl,” he murmurs. He’s not worried, but if she dies on his watch he figures Eve will be upset, and he can’t have that. He waits for the beans to heat up. Only the pot never bubbles because he’s put it on the wrong grill. “Bloody hell!”

Adam returns to Katie-Ann’s room, his arms full of random fares he raided from the pantry. In one hand he carries the bowl of steaming beans, but he also lugs a bag of crisps, a jar of red, possibly strawberry, jelly, and a bottle of water up the stairs. He’ll make her eat even if he has to force it down her throat. He kicks the bed to wake her up and that earns him a tremendously dark scowl from the young woman.

“I’ve got food for you. Eat.”

She halfway sitting and looking at him with her bleary eyes before he dumped her lunch on her lap. Now she was gapping. “Adam,” she squeals, “you can’t expect me to eat all of this! This will last me a couple of days at least.”

He hands her the steaming bowl of beans and a spoon, forcibly wrapping her fingers around the dented handle. “I don’t care. Eat it.”

She grumbles something under her breath and yields because she knows Adam is going nowhere anytime soon. He keeps himself buy while she eats. He puts up her guns, and replaces her walkie-talkie back on the charger. He knows its companion is with her friend and he doesn’t approve. He’s never met him, and has no desire to meet another zombie.

 “Hey, Adam?” Katie-Ann is slowly stirring her spoon about the bowl, slowly, contemplatively, before she shoots him a tentative peek from beneath her dark lashes. Adam’s shocked by how worn she looks in her wrinkled bed. Her eyes are no longer that fierce hazel color, and there are dark shadows deepening under them. “When do you think Eve will come back?”

Adam’s unfamiliar with this side of Katie-Ann. He shakes his head and quietly replies, “I don’t know.”

She swallowed thickly. Her pale lips pinch tightly together. “No dreams? No spooky action at the distance in the works?”

Because he doesn’t want her to worry, he says no. He only knows a glimpse of her association with his thrice married wife from what little Katie-Ann has divulged, but can tell she’s just as besotted and protective of Eve as he continues to be. He’s not jealous. Eve’s warmth renders her an easy target for love.

“I guess no news is good news,” she mumbles faintly. It takes her a second to collect herself.  She clears her throat and says, “I told Dylan that he can come with us tonight.”

Adam rolls his eyes hard enough to strain them. “Why?”

“We can use him. He’s another pair of hands and another pair of eyes,” Katie-Ann snaps. “We’ll be able to loot quicker and faster with his help.” _That way we’ll be in and out before Old Sisty knows we’re there_. “Besides he’s running low on supplies too.”

“Fine, but he’s not riding in the car.”

 

To Be Continued


	4. The Buried Animal

 

Evening is slowly falling down around the restless park when Katie-Ann wakes up from her nap. Critters and larger animals are up and impatient for food, and so is she. She shoves herself up and reaches for her handgun tucked beneath her sleeping bag. It’s her constant companion. She double checks that that safety is still on before resting it in her lap. Unzipping the door of her tent allows fresh, crisp air and light inside the polyester cavern while revealing the orange sky and lengthening shadows outside. The dense woodland is coming alive, and she listens to the melody as she forces herself to chew on a Mayday Bar. If she thinks hard enough she might be able to convince herself that she is simply enjoying some springtime camping, and that the world is safe and wholesome place again.

She longer knows what month it is anymore. Her menses has never been regular, and her poor diet has caused it to stop all together. She doesn’t see that as a drawback. She doesn’t have to worry about messing up her underwear, and the days she left incapacitated by cramping and aches. She relies on the moon instead to count the time. At least a month and a half has passed in this new place. She had squatted in an abandon ranch outside of the city limit of what used to be Ashdown, TX for the winter. She was wary and uneasy in Texas. The infection had hit the citizens there hard, and seemed to have thrived in the intense heat. As soon as she could she got her hands on a car with a little bit of fuel left in the tank and drove it as far North as it could take her.

The state park was as good a place as any to stay now. It’s wild enough to keep her small camouflage colored tent hidden from view, and waiting out the apocalypse in such a remote place doesn’t frighten her. She has a couple of items to make her life easier. The tent, camping gear, and sleeping bag were all pilfered on her way out of her home town and are beginning to show signs of wear and tear. The Remington 1911 R1 is hers. She used to carry radio that would relay news from the outside world, and would listen to it avidly, but soon the deteriorating state of the country made it too hard to listen to. There was no rebound like most people hoped. No miracle cure. When there was nothing but dead air broadcasting, she chucked the useless piece of plastic, and grew more determined to save her own skin. The things she has to defend herself against are the bigger animals, not the infected or the mistrustful survivors, but the wolvers and coyotes tend to prey upon the overpopulation of deer and rabbits, not humans. She only hopes curiosity, not hunger, is the reason why they wander into her campsite at night. Still it’s a good idea to pull a Katniss Everdeen and hang out in the trees at night.

She stops eating when the few mouthfuls of the protein bar makes her want to gag. She’s eaten so much of the stuff that the sight of it makes her nauseous, but stopping would mean starvation. It’s still early spring. There are no berries or wildflowers to supplement her diet, and no baby animals to catch in snares and eat, so she will have to make due for a few more weeks on the protein bars, whatever fish she can catch, and water. Still the thought of a slow and painful death doesn’t make eating any easier. She needs a break from the chore, and getting water is the best distraction.

She climbs out of her tent with her aluminum bottle and gun in tow. There’s a lake just down the hill. The park is equipped with primitive restrooms and water fountains, but they’re bone dry. She’ll collect as much water as she can from the lake, and then bring it to a boil at her campsite before she can have her fill. She doesn’t want to deal with the runs on top of everything else.

The growl of an animal echoes around the static lake, and sends chills rippling down her spine. Her face contorts as both confusion and worry play out across her features. She’s never heard a sound like that before. The growl dithers between desperation and rage. She looks around, trying to gauge where the awful sound is coming from. She closes her eyes and listens hard. Slowly low cords of complacent laughter trail behind the uproar. Men. Men laughing and taunting whatever poor animal they are trying to capture. Katie-Ann’s stomach sours. They don’t sound like good men. If they are poaching in her neck of the woods she will either have to move out quickly before being seen, or stay and risk being captured and probably raped by a pack of deadbeat rednecks before they kill her. If she kills them now while they’re distracted then she won’t have to worry about them later.

She makes her way slowly through the prickly brush, guided by the noise. The shrill howls are as terrifying as they are heart wrenching. She crouches on top of a rocky outcrop that’s caught between two massive evergreens and surveys the small clearing below. A group of three men in tattered denim and bright orange baseball caps are wrestling something up from the ground by rope. It’s fighting and snarling something fierce, refusing to be captured, but it’s a losing battle. There’s a moment when Katie-Ann can’t figure out what they are uncovering. It’s not an animal she has ever seen before. The figure is long and lean, almost human. Hands are skeletal claws that tear at the ground. Hair is an encrusted mane that hides its face. The men laugh and tug harder.

“We’re not letting her get away now, boys!” A man cheers his buddies on as the prisoner writhes and snarls below in the pit. “Her blood will be delicious.”

Things immediately become crystal clear. There’s only one thing in the world that looks human and hides in the ground during the day. The rednecks found themselves a real life vampire.

“It’ll be almost as delicious as her pussy,” another man taunts. His missing teeth make his smirk a nasty one.

Blood dopers and rapists. Katie-Ann doesn’t flinch when she points her gun. Steady, aim, fire. The bullet tears through the head of the closest man, and he drops dead to the brain-splattered ground. The two others are stunned into silence. The ropes relax and their prey turns predator in a blink of an eye. It’s better not to linger to long, and she books it as fast as she can away from one seriously pissed of vampire. Even though the men had it coming, she doesn’t want the vampire to find out there is another meal on two feet inside the forest.

She’s almost to her tent when the ghastly vampire catches up with her. It’s impossibly fast, just a haze of white and brown, before its standing in the shadows front of Katie-Ann, solid as a rock and just as immobile.

“Oh, shit!” She stumbles to a stop and gawps like a simpleton, her eyes bulging with fright. The vampire stares back, eerily calm despite the deep red blood dripping from its thin lips to wet its gaunt chin. Its pupils are blown wide, and color is slowly returning its sallow, sunken cheeks. It’s tall, impossibly thin, and clothed in white beneath the thick layer of cracking mud. Katie-Ann has never seen a vampire this close before. Rumors of the undead spread like wildfire almost as quickly as the zombies did, and one thing is true. They are _not_ allies.

Her grip tightens one her Remington.

Should she try to reason with it? Can it be reasoned with or is it as mindless as one of the infected?

Since it’s not attacking her, she presses her luck. She wets her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “Those men wanted to kill you.” She hates how pathetically weak she sounds, but she’s fucking terrified. Still the vampire hasn’t ripped her throat out. That’s a positive. “I saved you. You don’t need to kill me.”

“Yes, you did save me.” The creature is female and speaks with a remarkably crisp, clean, English accent. Katie-Ann doesn’t know how many more surprises she can handle, and feels like the surprise has knocked the wind right out of her. “I wanted to thank you.” She cracks a smile that would have been considered maternal had not it been stained with blood, and presents an AK-47. “For you.”

It’s so hard for her to formulate a basic sentence so she just stares between the gun and the vampire, confused and tie-tongued. “So,” she begins, slowly, carefully, after a moment, “you’re not going to kill me?”

The question catches the vampire of guard. She blinks, her thin eyebrows arched high enough to wrinkle for forehead. “Of course not, darling,” the vampire coos softly. The term of endearment isn’t an excuse to hide mockery in broad day light, and there’s genuine kindness in her brittle voice. Katie-Ann never expected the gaunt animal to be a civil English lady in disguise. “Though you are quite pretty, you’re not my type.”

Her knees are so weak with relief that she wants to drop to the ground. She wobbles to the side before weakly reaching for the riffle. It’s massive and heavy, but it’s definite upgrade from her handgun. The vampire offers several magazines and Katie-Ann eagerly shoves them into the pockets of her oversized coat. “Thank you.”

The vampire’s thin smile widens. “What’s your name?”

“Katie-Ann.”

“With your drawl it would only be natural for you to have a hyphenated named,” she jokes. Her eyes are laughing and gentle, but it doesn’t feel like she is being made fun of so she takes no offense. “I’m Eve. Tell me something, Katie-Ann, do you live here or are you just passing through?”

“Honestly, I’m just trying to stay alive.”

“I recommend moving then. There’s a fire starting to consume the plains out west, and it’s only a matter of time before this forest becomes kindling.”

Katie-Ann stomach drops. She’s grown fond of her new home. “Really? How do you know that?”

The vampire touches her delicate nose. “We’ve a very keen since of smell.”

“Oh.” Already her mind is frantically trying to figure where she should go, but she can’t leave just yet. “Well what about you? Where are you going?”

The answer’s a surprising one. “I’m going to Los Angeles to collect my sister,” the vampire replies. “At least that’s what I tell myself. It’s slow going since I can only move about at night, and there are assholes everywhere now. After that, Detroit.”

There has been no good news coming from that direction recently. The infection devastated L.A with its surplus of humans and no viable place to quarantine them quickly enough. “Good luck with that,” she offers weakly.

“Are you by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you consider some company then? If you will be my bodyguard during the day, I’ll keep you save from the fire and the zombies.”

Katie-Ann wants to think she agreed so quickly to the strange arrangement because she was confused and desperate. There is no safe place to go to alone, and with a vampire companion surely she will be able to find a decent place to live. “Yeah,” she breathes, but her voice is weak and brittle and she worries that the vampire didn’t hear her. “Yeah, ok, I’ll go with you.” In retrospect it was the best decision she ever made.


	5. The Raid

Supercenters were first to be robbed. When hope still remained that the government would put a stop to the widespread infection and life would return to normal, people were only concerned about themselves. Food was a priority. Then armed guards in bullet proof vests and riot helmets were placed outside the Wal-Marts, Targets, even Family Dollar, to deter any wild ideas. Then the US currency crashed. Prices rocketed upwards, and the greedy corporations didn’t blink an eye when a gallon of milk went from $5 to $25 overnight. At first people protested, then they begged, pleaded, and bargained with sob stories and faces smeared with tears. Their last resort was full blown riots that shook cities all across the U.S.  It was during one of the large-scale riots that Katie-Ann got a gun and a tent, and got the hell out of there.

Hospitals were second once people realized the government had gone silent. In the weeks following the government shutdown hospitals became barricaded forts. If you had the equipment and the ammo to attempt a break in you would have to face armed cops, nurses, doctors, and even the able bodied patients who had already claimed the building, and all its supplies, for their own. The desperate tried. Some were successful but in most cases it was a bloodbath.

Adam lives just under a mile from a close-knit cluster of hospitals and clinics, and parks his jag XJ6 in the shadows along John St besides the VA Medical Center. The sight of the abandoned building gives her the willies even though she knows the place has been empty for years. The gang of doctors and nurses have either been killed or been forced to abandon the hospital. She searches the looming façade of the hospital for any movement or the flicking light of a flashlight that could mean trouble for them later, but without the aid of the streetlamps she can’t see much.

“You see anything?” Adam’s eyesight is far better than hers anyway. If old Sisty is lurking around then he’s bound to notice that old hag.

“Don’t worry. It’s clear.”

“Great!” She hops out of the car with a little more pep in her step. They’ve slept the day away, and she feels revived from the extra sleep and nourishment. Katie-Ann hopes to score big with the raid, and is determined to scavenge for as long as she can. 

She looks around for Dylan. He had told her over the walkie-talkie that he would ride his bike to the hospital and wait for them outside. For a moment there is no sign of her friends, but then nearby underbrush rustles before Katie-Ann sees a light flicker on in off in Morse code: D-y-l. Katie-Ann rhythmically pumps the rubber button of her own flashlight, and Dylan emerges from the foliage. He’s dressed warmly and carries a large backpack and his semi-automatic shotgun. She’s expecting to see him in his usual high spirits, but his feet are dragging as he approaches the car. He shoots cautionary looks across the car’s hood at the vampire hanging back in the shadows as if he’s expecting Adam to attack though he looks more like some bedraggled miner than a bloodthirsty vampire now. Luckily Adam is content to ignore the newcomer after taking a good whiff of him. His nostrils flare beneath his dark black shades. Then his nose wrinkles in disgust as he turns his face away. Katie-Ann chocks on her giggle.  

“Hey,” she greets him with a cheery smile that she hopes makes up for Adam’s indifference. 

“Did he just smell me?” His voice is a soft whisper but it doesn’t matter. Adam’s can hear him anyway, but he doesn’t know that.

“Probably.”

“Ok,” he breathes slowly, “I really wasn’t expecting that. What’s the plan for tonight?”

“Me and you’ll check out the upper floors together. We’ve combed through the first and second floors pretty good already so we can skip them. Then we’ll meet back here when we’re through, and if there’s any sign of trouble we’ll buzz Adam if we can’t handle it ourselves.”

Dylan nods towards Adam. “What’s Tall, Dark, and Goth going to do?”

“What he does best: work alone.”

Years of neglect, theft, and exposure to the elements left the ground floor in ruins. The ceiling tiles clutter the dusty ground in fiberboard pieces, along with bits of plaster, shattered florescent lights, and nameless filth. Weeds take root where they can. They gingerly steps through overgrown tree roots and pass the rusted doors of unusable elevators, inching their way to the stairwell that Adam and Katie-Ann had taken pains to conceal behind larger, heavier pieces of debris. With the three pairs of hands the door is revealed in a record time, but Adam’s all too eager to separate from the group after Katie-Ann canvasses the stuffy stairwell with her flashlight’s high beam. The familiar scurry of tiny feet fill the air, but soon it grows silent as the rats find a hiding place.

With barely a wave Adam shuffles down to the basement.

“Don’t get lost,” Katie-Ann chimes after him. “You’ve got the keys to the car.”

“He’s not much of a talker, is he?” He’s grinning now as the two climb up four flights of stairs with the aid of their flashlights, and his easygoing attitude infectious.  Whatever he had envisioned Adam to be had obviously been wrong, and his relieved to be proven wrong.

“I told you he’s not that bad.” They are both panting by the time they reach the higher levels of the hospital. “Of course he might also be thinking you aren’t worth insulting.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“Honestly I think he’s lonely.”

“How do you mean?”

“His wife’s been gone for months. She’s looking for her sister, and we don’t know when she’ll come back.”

Dylan looks torn between offering some sort of obligatory ‘I’m sorry’ and pressing Katie-Ann more questions. He starts with a soft apology before asking, “Vampires get married?”

“Apparently they’ve been marries for centuries.”

His widening eyes make her grin.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” She waits for Dylan’s consent before continuing. “Why do you dislike Adam so much?”

He’s gets straight to the point. “A vamp killed my grandma. I never knew my dad and my mom didn’t want anything do to with me, so my grandma raised me from birth. She was all I had. What about you? Where’re your parents?”

Revealing the entire truth wasn’t an option to Katie-Ann. So she shrugs and fudges a reply. “Being stubborn assholes got them killed, and I didn’t want to be there for that so I left.”

Dylan’s dark eyebrows shoot upwards, and she pushes past him through the doorway and into the floor, evading further questioning. Now really isn’t the time to get all emotional. Dylan thinks otherwise.

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that,” she snaps, but she still hopes this doesn’t change his opinion of her.

It’s smells better up here. Thanks to the broken windows, Katie-Ann can no longer smell the rotting bodies of the nameless doctors and nurses who died defended what they thought was theirs, but she knows they are still here, and worse Dylan appropriately.

Whatever discomfort they might feel dissipates when they begin to search in earnest. They are high on adrenaline and hope, but it’s easy to become discouraged as they scour the floor for medicine and supplies and come up empty. Most drawers and closets they come across are already empty or full of useless shit they have no need of. Medicine’s sparse. When they do find it it’s expired but they take whatever tubes of Neosporin, tablets of antibiotics and pain killers, and bottles of liquid B-12 they can find.  It takes time to dissect the area with nothing but two flashlights to break up the thick darkness. She doesn’t want to miss anything. Dylan in never far from her side, and stands as a lookout even though Katie-Ann is positive that rats and cockroaches are their only companions, while she divvies up the loot.  She makes sure to give him all the aspirin and vitamin D pills. She’s set on finding steroid medication, and riffles through junk until dirt cakes beneath her fingernails and her eyes are dry and tired, but she can’t find any in the picked-cleaned pharmacy or in its multiple backrooms.

They are both shaking from exhausted and caked with dirt when they finally call it quits for the night. They lean against Adam’s car, waiting. She gives Adam a good amount of time to return until she realizes that the night is slowly slips by. She smashes the button of the walkie-talkie, but there is no response on the other line. She ties it again, and then gives up with a heavy sigh.  Looking for a lost vampire is the last thing she wants to do, but she doesn’t want to stay out here all night. Besides it’s starting to get too cold.

She looks over at Dylan and shrugs. “Let’s heard back inside and try to find his sorry ass.”

They follow the stairway down as far as it goes. It’s colder and darker since there with no windows to allow the moonlight to filter in.  It’s a challenge to breathe the sour air. The smell is a nauseating combination of dust, feces, and mildew that make Katie-Ann’s nose wrinkle instantly. She shields her face in the bend of her elbow, but it doesn’t help conceal the stench.

“Guys first this time I think,” Dylan mutters as he carefully pushes his way past Katie-Ann. She follows close behind him, peeking over his shoulder every so often by standing on the tips of her toes to see the long black hallway stretching out before them like a hungry void. The white beams from their flashlights ricochet down long stone walls, catching closed doors, and faint footprints pressed into the dirty floor.

“Hey, look. That must be from him.” Katie-Ann tries the walkie-talkie again but there’s nothing but static on the other end. Worry sours her stomach. This shouldn’t be happening. The batteries were fully charged. “Let’s follow the trail.”

She doesn’t realize how tense she is as she slowly edges her way inch by inch down the hallway. Even with Dylan in front of her and her gun close-by, she doesn’t like being down in the basement. She can’t quite work up the courage to call out for Adam yet.

They follow the footprints before they pause in front of the exit. They push the heavy metal door open. The night air chills their faces but the fresh air is welcoming. She gulps it down as she looks around the docking area. Adam’s nowhere in sight.

“That’s weird,” Dylan says, “Maybe he headed back inside.”

“Maybe,” Katie-Ann replies automatically but she’s not so sure. She strains her ears for any sounds and routinely shines her light around the concrete dock, making sure the area is empty before leaving. There’s a movement from behind one of the commercial dumpsters but she figures it’s just a raccoon before she hears low, rough pants and the wet, viscous smack of lips. She looks at Dylan. His eyes are locked on the dumpster. His expression is hard as he raises his gun. She follows suit.

Together they creep towards the eerie sound. The closer they get, the loud the noise becomes. It’s sickening. Something is eating, gnawing, chewing like an animal starved. It sounds like a dog but it’s seems too big. Maybe it’s another wolf? Dylan skirts the corner of the dumpster first, shotgun pointed with the butt braced against his shoulder, and yells for whatever it is to freeze.

It keeps chewing.

Katie-Ann stays behind Dylan and shines her high beam across the area. It’s not a wolf. A naked, rail thin zombie is lurking feet from them. Its skin is dark and deeply shriveled like leather left out too long under the sun, and rutted where the skin clings to bones. It’s a walking corpse. The ridge of the spine is painfully recognizable as it squats over as it feasts, completely mindless to them. A hunk of meat is pulled away with a viscous tug and wolfed down before Dylan fires his shotgun. The bullet hits it in the shoulder, propelling the zombie sideways. And then it’s howling, howling so loudly and so shrilly that the stillness of the night is broken. It staggers weekly to its feet, panting raggedly as its reedy legs quake violently beneath it. Dylan continues to shot. The flurry of bullets riddles the chest with hollow holes and nearly severs the hairless head. Katie-Ann has to remind herself to breathe when the thing finally crashes to the ground with a tacky thud.

Dylan stands there a long moment with his smoking gun still raised. Once he’s sure the zombie isn’t getting up, he slowly lowers his weapon. His mouth is slack and he’s frightfully pale in the moonlight. “Since when do we have fucking zombies in Detroit?” Desperation breaks his voice.

Katie-Ann shakes her head. She’s too shocked to think of something to say. Eventually the disbelief fades and Dylan cussed up a storm while saying they need to burn the body. She nods absentmindedly as she examines whatever the zombie had been eating. She had been expecting an animal of some kind. She doesn’t expect to see a human body. Bile scorches the back of her throat as it shoots up to her nose.

“Dylan, look.”

She stops him mid-rant. “Shit! Oh, shit, do you think that’s him?”

She refuses to listen and rushes to the body on the ground. Dylan chases after her and together they shine their flashlights on the gruesome scene. Blood and chucks of viscera smear the ground. The emancipated body is more raggedy slivers of flesh and guts than anything else, but at least it isn’t Adam.

“What the fuck is that?” Katie-Ann sobs when she realizes that the bloody abdomen is faintly, very faintly, moving up and down as if it’s still breathing. The movement is shallow, but that should be impossible. She screams when a hand grabs her from behind and before she knows it the only thing she can see his Adam’s back.

She’s vibrating with an excess of adrenaline, and doesn’t care to keep her voice down when she sobs, “Quit fucking doing that, Adam! I have a fucking gun! Do you want to get shot?”

“Shut up,” Adam hisses. He surveys the motionless zombie and then the other body with improbable composure before he takes his first steps forward. Katie-Ann is horrified when she hears the wet, ragging wheezing coming from the body before Adam kneels beside it. It’s moving now, tiny little squirms as it refuses to die.  Katie-Ann aims her gun in case she has to save Adam from his own stupidity.

“That’s not necessary, Katie-Ann.”

“Why not? What if it’s another one of those zombies?”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know that?”

He shoots her a glare that made her bit her tongue before leaning dangerously close to the body. She wants to scream out from frustration. If he gets himself attacked then it would be his own damned fault. “What’s your name?” She’s never heard his voice go so soft before.

The breathing gets stronger, steadier, as it gathers whatever remains of its strength to hiss, “Lilith.”

 


	6. Recuperation

Silence rings in her ears as Katie-Ann stares wide-eyed. Tunnel vision makes it only so that she can see twitching corpse, and her trigger finger twitches.  That would be a bad idea with Adam so close. Her chest swells with a massive breath, letting it out and focusing on Adam. He’s looking straight at her and saying saying something, but she can’t hear him over the ringing and the thundering of her own heart. She shakes her head dumbly. Nothing’s making sense.

_Calm down, Kit-Kat,_ she tells herself, _you’ve dealt with worse shit than this._

When Dylan touches her shoulder the haze and the tunnel vision finally stop.

“Katie-Ann, go inside and get a blanket or a tarp,” Adam repeats. There’s an edge to his voice as if he’s trying to keep cool. He looks as though he wants to get up and shake her, but his hands are currently busy keeping the thing on the ground still.  The more it moves the more blood surges out from between the frayed ribbons of flesh.

“Why?” Katie-Ann croaks. Her throat is on fire. “Adam, what is that thing?”

“She’s a vampire. Katie-Ann, please go.”

“Come on,” Dylan murmurs, slowly drawing Katie-Ann away. “Let’s go.”

As soon as she’s inside she wants to throw up, but Dylan keeps her distracted. He barks out the order to check the opened rooms, and she follows through on auto-pilot. Thinking is momentarily suspended. The blankets they find are either moldy or chewed up by rats, but they do find black body bags stockpiled in the morgue. Katie-Ann grabs one while Dylan gets a dusty gallon of bleach from the shelf.

“Have you ever seen a vampire like that before?” Katie-Ann shakes her head no. Her teeth are clinched so hard that her jaw aches. She focuses on the discomfort so she doesn’t think back on Adam’s new friend. “I looks like it’s been drained or something. Like beef jerky put out to dry, you know.”

“Can you not, Dylan? I like beef jerky. Or at least I did.”

“Sorry. I’m just trying to figure this out. It doesn’t look like it’ll live for very long.”

“That might be for the best.”

When they return Adam has another job for them to do. He tosses the keys to the car to Katie-Ann and tells her to bring the car. They book it, eager to get the hell out of there. If there is one zombie there’s bound to be another one nearby, especially with the coopery stench of blood in the air. It attracts them like bees to honey. They toss their bags into the trunk along with Dylan’s bicycle. Traveling alone is out of the questions. Detroit is no longer safe, and she suddenly feels hyper aware of all the dangerous now. She can’t shake the feel of being watched.

She’s shaking as the car roars to life, and Dylan reminds her that she needs to be calm. They pull into the docking area. Dylan jumps out to douse the bloody dock with the bleach while Adam slips into the back seat with the small bundle of vampire in his arms. A gallon of bleach is best they can do to dilute the odor right now. Katie-Ann pulls out of the hospital and onto the quiet roads of Detroit. The cabin is tense and she checks the body bag in the rearview mirror often. It’s gone eerily quiet and still. She wonders if the vampire is a friend or foe. Adam must know her but she still finds herself asking, “Are you sure this is a good idea, Adam?”

“If we leave her out here, she’ll just attract more zombies.”

“Yeah, right,” she murmurs, gripping the stirring wheel. “Listen, we need to stay together. Detroit’s not safe right now. Dylan needs to stay the night.”

“Fine with me.”

It’s a short trip home, but they can’t get there fast enough. They leave the bike in the trunk for now and use the last of their strength to haul everything else inside. Adam is in a rare mood tonight and orders them upstairs to his room once Katie-Ann and Dylan collapse in the narrow foyer. “You’re not to leave there, got it? She’ll be starving when she wakes up and won’t care about the condition of her meals.” He goes down to the basement with Lilith, and Katie-Ann hears the door slam shut.

Silence returns and they loiter in the darkness, exhausted and wondering how they’re supposed to climb up all those damn stairs to the third floor.

“Shit,” Dylan exhales weakly. His lean body sags against the wall. His skin has taken on a sickly, clammy appearance and the shadows beneath his eyes have grown deep and dark.  Tonight was supposed to be a simple raid, and now she’s racked with guilt that she convinced Dylan to come along because it turned out to be a disaster.

Guilt gets her nowhere. They need to get upstairs. It takes some encouragement to get him to walk up the flights of stairs when he looks ready to drop right then and there, but they finally make it with Katie-Ann all but pushing him from behind. By the time they drop onto the old bed they are out of breath and fatigued. Katie-Ann doesn’t even care if the threadbare comforter and black sheets reek of dust and vampire. Dylan is out like a light almost instantly.

Katie-Ann isn’t so lucky. Worry eats at her and keeps her awake a little while longer. The clock on Adam’s nightstand reads midnight, but she can’t unwind. Piddling around is her next option to kill time. She unties Dylan’s boots and slips them off to reveal dingy, discolored socks, and unzips his coat to make him more comfortable and really sees how shabby his clothes are close-up. She makes note to snoop through Adam’s unused wardrobe for new socks and sweaters for Dylan. He’ll need them once the freezing temperatures hit the city.

She slips off the bed then to find a pencil and some paper. Making a detailed list of everything they got from the hospital is grueling, but she hopes the task is boring enough to wear her down. It doesn’t work. She wants to know what’s happening downstairs. She needs to know. She finally decides to trade her safety for her peace of mind. She makes sure Dylan is ok before leaving the room, ignoring the direct orders from Adam. She stops by her own room to change into her sweats. She ditches her boots for a pair of worn slippers and sneaks down to the dank basement.

Adam has turned a couple of the overhead lights on when Katie-Ann quietly opens the basement door. She peeks inside, but can’t see much aside from the piles of nameless clutter hoarded between the crumbling concrete walls. She keeps a clammy hold on the handle of her handgun as she scoots further inside the chilly basement. Adam is around the corner. He’s placed the vampire on top of a scarred wooden table, and has unzipped the bag enough to free Lilith from the shoulders up. He’s gentle as he holds her bald head up, and presses a cup of red liquid against her lips. Her eyes are closed, but she’s seems to be drinking the blood down anyway.

The light is not kind to Lilith. She looks like one of those skeletal survivors from a German concentration camp with her cheekbones jutting out sharply beneath bulging eyes. Purple and blue bruises dot her skin generously and Katie-Ann is glad that the bag hides the worst of her wounds because she’s pretty sure they had left her one of her arms back at the dock.

Katie-Ann steps closer and in her haste her knee bumps into a pile of junk. The mason jars rattle noisily and Adam’s head snaps up. His thin mouth tenses with displeasure. He’s seconds away from cursing her.

“I see you’ve found some blood,” Katie-Ann starts weakly.

“Yeah, it’s that artificial powder shit.”

“Will it work?” Vampires can heal damn quickly but her condition was bad even before she got mauled by the zombie. She wonders if she’ll regrow her arm.

“Maybe,” Adam murmurs enigmatically. He looks down at the androgynous body and his face is hard to read. “Maybe not.”

Katie-Ann throws caution to the wind and asks if he knows Lilith. A somber nod is Adam’s only answer, and suddenly her heart feels as heavy as lead. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “Listen I don’t think Dylan’s feeling well so he’s going to stay the night, okay?”

“Is it his lupus?”

Tears sting her eyes then. It’s an unpleasant surprise. She hates crying, and looks down at her feet before Adam can see her tears. “I think so. He just needs some peace and quiet. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I need you to go back upstairs, Katie-Ann.” Sadness has been replaced by icy curtness. “It’s for your own good.”

She nods and leaves, but not before handing over her gun.

~*~*~*~

Katie-Ann’s frying tiny chucks of wolf meat in the frying pan when Adam comes skulking into the kitchen. She’s never been a terrific cook, and this kind of meat is just out of her purview, but no one’s died of food poisoning yet, so she’s doing all right so far. The meat is lean and tough, and she wishes she had some seasonings for flavor, but she does what she can with a pinch of pepper and salt. Dylan’s still feeling weak from the raid, so she’s doing her best to fatten him up while he’s resting here. The B12 injection has kicked in and Katie-Ann is feeling like a new person, so much so that she went out one day with a rifle and returned with a wolf carcass. She told Adam he could have the blood if he helped her skin and gut it. He’s been alive forever so she figured he would know how. Adam agreed to the bargain, collected the blood in a big plastic bucket, and took it down to the basement. She hadn’t seen Lilith since the night of the raid. She was so busy looking after Dylan that she hasn’t had time to ask about the second vampire.

The meat looks done, and Katie-Ann sits the heavy pan on another burner to cool, the grease still popping loudly every now and then. She wipes her hands off on the dish towel tucked in her belt and turned about, preparing to raid that pantry for something else to serve besides lumps of flavorless protein for breakfast. She doesn’t expect to see Adam sitting at the table and visibly jumps. “Shit, Adam!”

He doesn’t apologize, just stares at her with his beady eyes behind his greasy black hair. His lips are pressed tight as if he’s trying to reign in his temper. She bristles, feeling her own anger start to flare up. The last couple of days the two have been almost friendly with each other. Being caretakers has left them very little time to bicker with one another. “What the hell’s up with you?” she snaps resentfully.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Old Sisty?”

Katie-Ann was prepared for that question. “Who told you about her?”

“Lilith. She was her prisoner up until about a week ago, had been for a very long time, before she escaped. She told me the woman’s a blood doper who’s ransacking Detroit for more vampires to drink from.”

“I didn’t think it was your fight,” Katie-Ann said quietly after a moment. “I mean, me and Dylan, we just thought she was a bully trying to run us off.”

“She’s far more dangerous than that.”

“Look, we’ll take care of her just as soon as Dylan feels better, ok?”

“Detroit isn’t your home, Katie-Ann,” Adam retorts. “It’s mine. It’s mine to protect. You’re just an outsider here.”

Katie-Ann pulls a nasty face. “Well, excuse me for trying to help then! Shit.” She’s ready to walk out of the kitchen, frying pan and all, because she sure as hell isn’t going to skip breakfast because Adam’s being a dick, but he grabs her elbow as she’s walking past. She wants to bang him over the head with the skillet.

“I’m sorry.” He’s looking so tired now. Tired and worn down as if time is finally catching up to him. “I’m the old living resident of Detroit. I love this city more than I can say, and I will not have it destroyed by some fucking human running amuck here, especially if she has vampire blood on her hands.”

“I want her gone as much as you do, but you’re going to need help if you want to take Old Sisty on. She’s one mean bitch with lots of gun and lots of ammo. We need a plan.”

“I know,” Adam consents, his eyes distant.

“You’re fast and quiet. You’ll scout out her territory when Dylan gets better. We’ve a map and a general area of where she’s staying for now. You’ll scout and nothing else, got it?” Katie-Ann repeats firmly. Now really isn’t the time for mindless revenge. They need to be smart about taking down Old Sisty. Since she’s been living off vampire blood, she’ll be abnormally fast, strong, and resilient. “Eve wouldn’t want you to risk your life doing something stupid. Once we have her location tacked down, then we make our move. Until then we hunker down and recuperate.”

A smirk tweaks Adam’s mouth and he salutes her. “Yes, ma’am.”

Katie-Ann is walking out of the kitchen when she calls over her shoulder, “I’m hoping you know how to fix up a bomb.”

 

 


	7. Two For The Price Of One

Old Sisty’s a God-fearing woman, but she ain’t no pushover. She prays daily, studies her earmarked bible by candlelight, but she looks out for herself with her shotgun. The Lord helps though who help themselves, right? Well, right not she’s helping herself just fine because she’s tired of being seen as a nobody, tired of being that rickety, compliant woman who cleans the houses of the privileged whites in the suburbs who never bothered to learn her name or even give her the holidays off to spend with her grandchildren. Where were those families now? Sisty prays the disease got them, got them good, cuz they was bad people.

Sisty’s bitterness towards folks keeps her on her toes. Born and raised in the poverty-stricken Highland Park she saw the dregs of society first hand-the flashy pimps, the painted whores, the shaky druggies in need of a fix-and all the wickedness that came with them. It was gratifying when the disease took them, was convince that Jesus was finally punishing the sinners of the world. Then the disease spread to the god-fearing and then the children. The news said it was bacteria, created by man, in the synthetic blood the hospitals praised as a miracle. Well, that’s what happens when a bunch of faithless scientists act like God. He gets pissed something awful and wipes the godless out just like He did in the story of Noah. Except the Lord’s cleansing the world with disease this time, but, like Noah, Sisty knows she’s safe.

She hasn’t always been alone. She had a granddaughter living with her in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, but she moved out years ago. Too many bad memories there. A person can only live so long with sickle cell anemia before the deep aching pain breaks you. They were out of pain killers so Sisty had to put a bullet in baby girl’s head one night. She wanted to spare her a slow, agonizing death, but also her constant crying had been drawing too much attention from the zombies for weeks. Now she’s alone, surviving the best she knows how the long abandoned a stone mansion on Woodward Avenue and shooting whoever dares to get close enough.

At fifteen she taught herself how to shoot her brother’s Glock 17 after she dropped out of high school. There was no money for school supplies but there was always plenty lying around for booze and drugs. She got a job to survive. She went to work at dawn, dressed in a simple blue button down frock with white apron and a gun stashed into her purse, and took the bus from neighborhood to neighborhood to clean up after the wealthy. She got home late, and that was a dangerous time. She learned to shoot to defend herself. She knew one too many girls who’d been beaten and raped in dark alleys. No policeman ever helped them, no arrests were ever made.

She doesn’t care about who she has to kill now. They’re all a no-good bunch of sinners anyway. Sisty tells herself she’s doing the Lord’s work as she makes herself dinner every night. Surely He approves and appreciates it.

The night is cold and the wind is bitter. Sisty gnashes her teeth while she spies on the group loitering in the docking area of the hospital. She’s across the way hidden in the shadows of the overgrown brushwood with her shotgun clutched in her hands. She knows about the kids. The boy’s local, but others are definitely outsiders. She hears the girl’s hick accent carried on the breeze and wants to spit. She ain’t nothing but white trash and that older man ain’t even an American.

The group should be the least of her worries though. She had woken up to an empty basement, the metal chains and dog collar no longer holding her prisoner, and Sisty ran off into the night. She was a good tracker, had to be, and in good health. The vampire was not so lucky. The trail was confused and unsteady. Months of being held up in a dank basement had made her legs too weak to do little more than a hobble. Sisty anticipated catching the ugly bitch sooner than later, but the other group had found her first, half-eaten by a zombie. What a damned fool. She ought to shoot them, but it’s too dark and she’s outnumbered, so she just stands back and scowls.

She never intended to become a blood doper. She considers vampires an abomination, demons straight from hell come to torment the living after the disease ravished the world, but their blood helps with her arthritis. She killed her very first vampire, it had been a close call. Hours later she’s feeling and looking great and she can’t figure out why. Must have gotten some blood in her mouth, she thinks. She goes back to the corpse. It’s rotten quickly and half eaten by animals, but there’s still enough blood left to wet the handkerchief she presses into the gunshot wound in its chest. She holds the fabric against her lips, and sucks hard, greedy. Now she can’t shake the addiction. Vampire blood is the only way Sisty’s can keep doing the Lord’s work. She doesn’t want to die yet, not when she’s having such a good time.

She stays in the shadows, watches as they haul the tore up vampire into the car and peel off. It’s grating, but the vampire’s nearly drained dry anyway so Sisty tells herself not to care too much. Let them deal with getting rid of the bag of bones. She does care about where they are heading off to, but she has no way to follow them. She finally admits defeat when the taillights disappear into the night and makes her way home to her stone mansion.

There is another vampire waiting for her in the living room. A bright fire in the hearth highlights her guest’s figure and casts shadows about the timeworn room. She’s slim and white with the long body of a model and a sweet face of a budding teenager. She looks like the kind of woman that plastered the front page of fashion magazines even in Detroit. The kind of woman that would never give Sisty the time of day before now. She perks up when Sisty enters. She sits her book aside and smiles wide, gleefully. There had never been any sign of friendship between the two vampires.

“Oh, you’re back!” Ava’s an outsider too. English by the sounds of it just like the man back at the hospital. Sisty can’t understand why she’s holing up in Detroit, but doesn’t care to ask questions. She can tell this vampire is a mischievous one, full of the whereabouts of more vampires for Sisty to hunt down, so Sisty lets her stay. “Did you find Lilith?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get there in time,” Sisty mutters. Her voice is deep and smoky, a voice hardened by time and a trials. “Another group got to her first.”

Ava’s interest is piqued. “Was there another vampire with them? She’d be tall, slim, and blonde, very blonde.”

“Nah, it was just the three of them.”

The blonde vampire frowns and slouches against the couch cushions once more. “I really thought Eve would be with them by now. I really miss her.”

“The man was English like you.”

A dark expression passes over the girl’s pallid face. She looks like she’s remembering some troubling times. “Adam,” she hisses softly. “He’s Eve’s husband.”

Sisty rounds on Ava, really wanting to spit now. “He’s a vampire?”

The girl recoils and baits her big eyes, but it doesn’t work to calm Sisty’s rage. “Well, yeah, but I can’t take him to you, Sisty. I don’t know where he lives. He moved from his old home a long time ago and is an utter homebody. Finding him is impossible without Eve.”

Sisty frowns and holds her glare for a good long while. She could use this vampire as fodder, but her blood will only last for a couple of months before she’s all dried up, then Sisty would be one her own to track down another vampire. She couldn’t risk killing off the little weasel now. Not when she needs her.

“Don’t you worry. Eve won’t stay away for long,” the vampire says. “She’ll realize I’m not in Las Angeles soon enough and then she’ll come back Detroit, come back to Adam, and draw him out. She won’t be able to help it. Then you can have them both. Two for the price of one.”


	8. Hard Decisions

Chapter Eight

Hard Decisions

The smell of smoke is stifling. Following their noses, Katie-Ann and Dylan head outside in the early dawn hours, and they stare in shock at the southern horizon blazes red and billows thick, black smoke up into the periwinkle sky. Detroit’s burning. Uneasy and disheartened, they’re reluctant to break the news to the slumbering Adam. He doesn’t take it very well. He hunkers down deeper into his bed sheets and grumbles at them to go away with a heavy voice. He’s left alone because Katie-Ann doesn’t know what else to do. Zombies and now a fire threaten the makeshift group, and a yawning helplessness suddenly begins to rip the seams of Katie-Ann’s composure.

Katie-Ann feels the pressure of Dylan’s gaze as she spoons a tiny mountain of lukewarm beans and small chunks of wolf meat into her mouth. They huddle in the kitchen warmed by the electric stove and are covered in lumpy blankets and knit beanies to keep the new night’s chill at bay. The attention makes her pause, mouth gaping wide for the deposit that never comes like a wide-eyed baby bird, and awkwardly asks, “Wha?”

Dylan’s shoulders shudder and he’s murmuring “Nothing” before returning to his own meager dinner. Meat’s scarce tonight. Hunting is out of the question right now so whatever’s left of the wolf needs to last until it’s safe enough to get more. And who knows when that’ll be? Could be a couple of days or even weeks. An expedition outside would mean dipping into their dwindling stock of ammunition if they have to kill zombies as well as their future dinner.

Katie-Ann studies Dylan, her thin mouth pinched with irritation. Rest and food make noticeable improvements with his health but his mood remains tainted. This new side of Dylan worries her something awful.

“You’re easier to read than a book, Dylan. What’s wrong? You don’t want to go back to your place, do you?”

The best case scenario is that he’s just uncomfortable with their vampire roommates. Luckily Adam and Lilith keep to themselves, letting Katie-Ann and Dylan have the run of the second floor and kitchen. She can’t imagine allowing him to return to his place.

Worst case scenario his lupus is wreaking havoc on his body and it’s only a matter of time before it gets the best of him. Katie-Ann stubbornly tells her brain to shut up. Her friend ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. She won’t let him.

Dylan’s voice pulls her back to the present. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said back at the hospital.”

Dread knots Katie-Ann stomach.  She causally stirs her dinner, “Oh, yeah? About what?”

He doesn’t beat about the bush. “That stupidity got your parents killed. Well, it was pretty stupid of us going out that night.”

Frustration heats up her face. “It was a little stupid knowing what we got caught up in, but we needed supplies, Dylan. We’ll need supplies again and then we’ll have to make another run, or we might have to move altogether. Nowhere and nothing is safe now. It’s just a part of life. We just got to suck it up and be prepared for whatever happens.”

“I just,” Dylan starts desperately, eyes as downcast as his voice, “I just don’t want you leave me like you did with your parents, Kit-Kat. I’m terrified that one day I’ll wake up and find you gone. No note. No explanation. No nothing.”

Tear spring into her eyes, burning them. “That’s not fair,” she hisses between clenched teeth, struggling to keep calm. She hadn’t been expecting a jab like that.  For a moment she’s too stunned and hurt to tell him how wrong he is.

“I’m never going to get over lupus,” Dylan presses on. “It’s just something I’ve got to live with for the rest of my life and, you know, this ain’t gonna get any easier. I’m going to be a burden to you one day. You still have some fight left in you, and you’ve got nothing holding you here. You can always cut your losses and leave, and that scares me something bad.”

Katie-Ann grabs Dylan’s hand in hers and holds on tight, wishing he knew just how deeply she cares about him. “It was easy to leave my parents because they were total shitheads,” she admits. “I stopped loving them long before the outbreak. It’s different now. It’s different with you and Adam. You don’t beat me or call me a fag or a whore when you’ve had too much to drink. I’ve found the family I always wanted, and I won’t leave you no matter what.”

Sleep comes easy to Dylan that night, but Katie-Ann is too strung up on emotions to surrender just yet. She slips out of bed, sidesteps Dylan who’s resolute on sleeping on the floor, and wanders into the cluttered parlor where Adam stashes his horde of instruments and recording equipment that she can’t even name. For once he’s nowhere to be found and Katie-Ann finds the absence of his somber, reverberating music disconcerting. Must be out hunting or mourning Detroit’s fate, she assumes sadly. The fire hasn’t spread too far north thanks to the wind blowing in off of Lake St. Clair, but it continues to eat up downtown.

She puts on a record to distract herself. It’s some obscure artist, but she likes the cover art well enough to give it a chance. She curls up beneath a blanket on the velveteen couch, fiddling with her necklace. Eve’s another huge reason she can’t just leave. If they go, how will she possibly find them? The music is soft and soothing, an instrumental melody that makes Katie-Ann’s eyelids grow heavy. Her mind blanks. Her hand gradually falls from her necklace.

“You’re still pretty even when you’re tired.”

Lilith. The one-armed vampire lingers just outside the doorway like a shadow. The blood Adam routinely shares with her brings her back form the dead. Though her figure remains willowy within Adam’s borrowed clothes, it’s unbelievable how striking she’s become. Her shaven head only highlights her sharp cheekbones and round hazel eyes that seem to capture everything. Katie-Ann has little reason to wary of the newcomer. She’s caught the vampire’s appreciative glances multiple times and it has nothing to do with blood lust.

Her cheeks catch fire quickly. “I’m not,” Katie-Ann murmurs sleepily. “Pretty I mean. I’m really fucking tired though. I’m always tired.”

The vampire inches inside the room with a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth and sits on the opposite end of the sofa. Katie-Ann doesn’t mind the company.  “This city’s on its last legs,” Lilith announces softly.

“Detroit needs to hold out a little more.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible. You might want to think about packing up and leaving before it’s too late.”

“I’ll wait and see what Adam thinks.” She doesn’t give Lilith’s words a second though but she knows they can’t contend with a juiced-up maniac as well as a fire when their team is so vulnerable. A limited amount of ammo and a rickety house was their only defense, and Katie-Ann knew that isn’t good enough. “Your sleeve’s come undone.” She scoots closer and the vampire lets her fiddle with the empty sleeve. The clothespin has come undone and the sleeve’s unrolled. She removes it and diligently rerolls the fabric. Her fingers shake a little under Lilith’s watch. “Is that what you’re thinking of doing?”

“I was on my way north when Sisty caught me. I’m determined to resume my journey.”

“North? To Canada?” Katie-Ann comes to a stop, and glances at Lilith. “I’m not an expert when it comes to vampires, but to you think that’s a good idea?”

The vampire smiles as if amused by her concern. “I’ll be fine in a couple of days. I’ve got a destination in mind. You three ought to come.”

“We can’t. Not now.”

“Open your eyes. Detroit is a shithole. It’s not going to last the winter.”

  _I might not even last the winter._ “We can’t live without Eve.”

Lilith doesn’t comment, but stands up to leave when her sleeves pinned once more.

“Do you know where Adam is?”

“He’s gone out for the night. Scouting, I think.”

“Oh, shit.”  She’s off the couch before Lilith can ask what’s wrong. In her haste to dress warmly she wakes up Dylan. “Adam’s gone scouting.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted him to do?”

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want him to search for Sisty right now.”

Getting to the roof is easier with a partner. They sit and keep their eyes glued to the empty roads, looking for any movement. For warmth they huddle together. Their guns are within reaching distance if they need them. Eventually Lilith joins them, brining blankets for them to bundle up in, but remains a cautious distance away from Dylan.

“Will you look at that,” Dylan says in awe as he points to the angry red and orange stripe beneath the solid black canvass of the night sky.

“It’s all burning down,” she says sadly, shaking her head. Lilith sits on her left, somberly watching the spectacle. She’s too preoccupy to see the vampire move in the darkness, but her heart jumps a little with happiness, an unfamiliar feeling now, when she feels a  hand gently press against her back. The simple touch is more than comforting and suddenly it’s the only thing Katie-Ann can think about.

Adam doesn’t come home until after midnight. They are stiff from the cold when they slowly crawl down from their lookout position to meet him on the second floor. It’s a somber gathering in the dark corridor.

Behind his long strands of mess black hair, his eyes are defeated and his mouth in pinched tight. “Looks like Sisty’s gone for now,” he tells them.

“Gone? How do you mean?”

“I tracked her down to her house. It’s empty.”

“It could be a lie,” Lilith speaks up.

Adam shrugs and pushes passed them to retrieve his guitar in the living room. “Looks like the real thing to me. Maybe the fire drove her out.”

“Ok, so no more scouting,” Katie-Ann says. “We just need to lay low and wait for shit to settle down.”

Adam gives her a curt nod, but he’s already miles away.  Sonorous chords erupt from the loud speakers as he gnashes his fingernails sharply across the strings, and Katie-Ann knows he’s done talking to them for the night. Grief affects everyone differently.

 

To Be Continued


End file.
